Letter: Gray wolf needs added protections

The gray wolf killings that exceeded Wisconsin's 2013 quota - as well as the cavalier attitude toward this excess - are illustrative of an unfair bias toward this species ("Wisconsin wolf season ends with 6 extra wolves killed," Dec. 26).

The quota of 251 wolves set by the Department of Natural Resources was already excessive, and the death of even one wolf over this limit contributes further to the peril this fragile species faces. Thousands of majestic gray wolves once roamed across the United States, but exploitative bounty programs, poisonings, trapping and aerial shooting nearly eliminated the gray wolf from the lower 48 states over the past century.

The gray wolf was removed from the list of endangered species in the Great Lakes Region in 2012, and Born Free USA is part of a major lawsuit to restore protection there. Delisting wolves has allowed Wisconsin and other states to implement open trophy hunting seasons that encourage the most inhumane methods of hunting, including use of steel-jawed traps, baiting and attacking wolves with packs of dogs.

Approximately 6,000 gray wolves currently reside in the continental U.S., with only a fraction of these inhabiting Wisconsin. Setting a harvest quota of 251 - and then watching hunters exceed this number - could severely impact the state's fragile population. I fear that the crucial conservation efforts that have brought wolves back from the brink of extinction will be quickly undone by these actions.